Bowing to continued pressure from the New York Attorney General, two more big-name American ISPs have shutdown access to dozens of Usenet newsgroups that contain child pornography - and many more that don't.
AT&T and AOL have agreed to
eliminate access to usenet newsgroups where state investigations have turned up nearly 11,000 sexually lewd photos featuring prepubescent children.
This follows similar promises from Time Warner Cable, Sprint, and Verizon. All five of
these mega-ISPs have also agreed to rid their web servers of child pornography, as identified by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).
And some have gone even further. Time Warner, AT&T and AOL decided to extend
their Usenet crackdowns well beyond the 88 groups flagged by the AG. AT&T will eliminate direct access to all binary newsgroups - i.e. all groups that serve up full-blown data files.
Meanwhile, AOL tells the The Associated Press it
will block access to every newsgroup there is - binary and ASCII. Update: Cable & Broadband ISPs Toe the Line 24th July 2008
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association Thursday announced that 18 of the nation's largest cable and broadband Internet service providers have agreed to block access to any Web sites known to host or distribute illegal child pornography
files.
By signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU), these cable operators serving 87%, or more than 112 million homes, of Internet service subscribers will work with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the
National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG). In addition, the member companies will also report any instances of child pornography they unearth to the NCMEC CyberTipline and, where appropriate, revise their policies around other potential
sources of child pornography such as newsgroups and other online bulletin boards.
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